GOSPEL MEDITATION # 196
Jesus Feeds the Four Thousand
Mark 8:1-10
- Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
- Matthew’s account, 15:32-39, reads almost identical to Mark’s. 4000 this time, 5000 last, and this crowd without food for 3 days. They had bread but of a different kind. When this is available, nothing else matters much.
- Jesus, not the disciples, see the need. He has compassion but the disciples do not have. Do we?
- 7 loaves only, and these are seed cakes, flat bread. Also a few fish. Jesus maintains order, has the people sit down on the ground, not green grass as before.
- Jesus gives thanks, twice, once for the loaves and then for the fish. Possible the fish were presented later on. The prayer was one of thanksgiving not a “blessing” on the food.
- The miracle, as in the 5000 feeding, must have occurred in the hands of Jesus as He broke the bread cakes and fish. Imagine the strength and patience it must have required.
- Everyone was satisfied, content, as it always is when Jesus feeds us.
- 7 baskets were needed to collect the leftovers. But the word for baskets is different from that used in the 5000 feeding. There the word means small baskets, the kind most travellers carried with them. Here it means a hamper, a large basket, the kind used in Acts 9:25 to describe the basket Paul was lowered down in.
- Jesus then flees with his disciples via the boat again.